Preparation, characterization and electrical study of gum arabic/ZnO nanocomposites

Abstract

Gum arabic (GA)-mediated chemical synthesis was carried out for obtaining ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) (particle size of ZnO ≈ 40 nm) which, in turn, was used for preparing ZnO–biopolymer nanocomposites. The dielectric study of this synthesized products is reported in this paper. The synthesized products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, and transmission electron microscopy for their structure and morphology study. The frequency dependence of dielectric constant and dielectric loss of these GA–ZnO nanocomposites were analysed in the frequency range of 100 Hz–5 kHz. In addition, the dielectric property of these nanocomposites (0–15 wt% filler concentration) was analysed with respect to frequency in the temperature range 30–80°C. A high dielectric constant of 275 is achieved for the sample with 10 wt% of ZnO filler. The dielectric property of GA–ZnO nanocomposites is attributed to the interfacial and orientation polarization.